It has long been known to deploy dental restoration methods and dental restoration apparatus to produce, based upon predetermined data, dental products. Such production is typically effected via a stock removal device which, as a rule, removes stock material from a blank such that there remains a dental product having the desired geometry wherein, preferably, the desired stock material removal work is effected via milling or grinding.
For some time, numerically controlled stock removal processes have been deployed, as well, in the dental field in order to achieve as precise a restoration result as possible. In this connection, a virtual restoration is produced in a dental laboratory, based upon information provided from a dental practice which can, for example, encompass imprint information of the jaw or mandible of the respective patient, and information characterizing the virtual restoration is transmitted as a data packet to a stock removal workshop. Since the requisite stock removal effort in the stock removal workshop domain is not inconsiderable, it is advantageous if several dental laboratories transmit their data to the same stock removal workshop, whereupon the collective stock removal work is undertaken at that location.
On the other hand, it is known that each stock removal machine should be monitored in order to prevent the occurrence of defective parts. This monitoring can be effected by, for example, a simple monitoring device which can monitor the course of the production process in its entirety and can indicate via an alarm to a service person in the stock removal workshop if a defect occurs.
In fact, precisely as a result of the data transmission by several dental laboratories to a single stock removal workshop, the respective stock removal workshop is faced with the problem of determining which type of requisition data from the dental laboratories should be provided to it. Notwithstanding the specification of the particular type of requisition data to be sent, however, small differences between the requisition data can occur, depending upon the respective program that a dental laboratory uses. Most typically, such differences come about by the actions of the dental laboratory such as, for example, when sensing the geometry of a model as a step in the production of a virtual restoration, the dental laboratory program user determines how many measurement points should be taken into account. Typically, triangulated surfaces are surveyed and data relating thereto is provided as requisition data. For this reason alone, if there is variation in the mesh width of the grid of the triangulated surfaces, considerable differences occur among the requisition data and the requisition data must be differently interpreted if, for example, the mesh width of the grid decreases in a critical area of the restoration.
With regard to the stock removal plotter, which determines the necessary stock removal machine activities to remove stock material from a respective blank and which, from the requisition data, generates control data that is machine readable for controlling the stock removal activities of the stock removal machine(s), it is necessary by reason alone of the complex work process necessarily undertaken by the stock removal plotter that the restoration result—namely, the finished dental product—be subjected to a quality control overview.
A further problem in connection with the work set up of a stock removal workshop which services several dental laboratories is that of ensuring the proper association of each requisitioned product to the respective requisitioning laboratory. It is conventionally known to use a so-called invoicing program to provide an appropriate requisition work flow and, as well, to generate the invoicing. The reliability of such systems is, however, strongly dependent upon how completely the relevant requisition information has been inputted; to avoid defects, it is typically necessary that an additional work colleague be occupied with the quality control overview within the scope of the stock removal workshop activities.
Additionally, even if modern stock removal machines comprise an integrated monitoring device which senses the wearing out of the work tools that perform the stock removal, and which, optionally, senses the induced oscillations in connection with the stock removal work, and provides warning signals as a function of the sensing, a visual verification of the finished dental product is required in order to preclude the possibility that internal machine controls are operating in a defective manner.
Since the stock removal work in the stock removal workshop which services several dental laboratories is, due to the above-noted reasons, heavily plagued with defect occurrences or necessitates numerous special measures to combat the occurrence of such defects, it has also been recommended that a simple stock removal workshop be installed in the dental laboratory itself. Due to cost reasons, only relatively large dental laboratories can contemplate this type of configuration. Also, in this connection, the cost frameworks impose tight limits on the operation so that resort must be had to only the most cost effective machines.
In connection with the concept of a stock removal workshop, it is to be understood that this concept comprehends a station with a stock removal plotter and a stock removal device, wherein the station can preferably be provided with the corresponding requisition data and which can produce the dental product, independently of whether the station is remote from the requisitioning dental laboratory or is deployed in this laboratory.